


No echo

by belantana



Category: Spooks | MI-5
Genre: Apocalypse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-25
Updated: 2009-07-25
Packaged: 2017-10-23 20:27:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/254650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belantana/pseuds/belantana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry, Ros and the end of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No echo

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [@eljay](http://belantana.livejournal.com/33136.html). With thanks to londonsophie for the prompt, the pre-story and the beta. :)

"You know," Ros mused, "I think I prefer London without the people."

Harry paused in his stroll to survey the empty Embankment. In the blanketing mist, the desolation was infinite. Had he been sharing this last-people-on-earth experience with anyone other than Ros, he would have expressed disbelief that the eerie silence could be preferable to anything at all.

"Do you," he said instead.

They continued their slow promenade. The fog sat atop the Houses of Parliament, shrouding the broken spire of Big Ben, for which Harry was grateful. He had a sudden vision of the bizarre image they must make; himself a black silhouette against the whiteness, Ros' pale coat and hair rendering her almost invisible. The vision dissolved in an instant when he realised there was no one there to see them.

There are people outside London, he told himself. Lots of people.

The fog stubbornly continued to be the edge of the world.

A simple pick-up, Ros had called it. Child's play. And it was - the SIS dead-drop location which Lucas had inexplicably produced had yielded its share of encrypted secrets with almost painful ease. The Services may have been evacuated with the rest of the city, but there were a lot more hidey-holes in London than the emptied archives of Thames House and Vauxhall Cross.

The retrieved package was now safely in Ros' coat pocket. Harry watched her clench her fist around it, tipping her head to the side, the ridge of her spine visible beneath her newly cropped hair. She was getting even thinner, he noticed. He wasn't very good at noticing things about his team. He'd realised recently that he never really had been.

"There's a patrol up ahead," she said.

Harry could hear nothing but the muffled clap of tiny waves breaking against the river wall. He said as much. Ros stiffened her shoulders and didn't reply.

Being faced with his own death did not make Harry feel his age. If anything he felt younger than he had in years, confronted more than ever by all the spectres and fancies he never laid to rest. Oh irony of ironies.

The fog amplified distance and compressed direction, and the patrol was on top of them before Harry had detached the banging of the engine from the rhythm of the waves.

"Shit, they're on the water." Ros glanced around, scanning for cover. "Quick, behind here."

Harry turned to the flat tableau of the river. Behind him Ros hissed with impatience. "Harry, this isn't a bloody exercise. They'll shoot us."

"It's a boat," Harry said.

"What? Yes, it's a bloody boat. Now get - "

Harry didn't move. He didn't turn around. "I had a message," he said, calmly. "Ros. There was another reason I wanted to come back to London. I had a message."

Ros looked at him, and she looked at the dark shape which was slowly appearing from the mist, the dense atmosphere absorbing any echo. For a second it seemed she might leap forward and grab him, demand to know what was going on, if it was friend or foe; or drag him to safety like some senile old man she had to protect out of deference to the past.

Then she turned on her heel and was gone.


End file.
